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I would like to speak of the least healthy aspect of this game.

Holy Malevolence·8/25/2014, 11:44:00 PM·1 votes·660 views

Said aspect being AD, but more specifically ranged AD's who're easily the largest problems in the game. So overpowered that trying to play a game without one on your side is basically a guaranteed loss. Yet despite that, they feel horrible to play, because if you manage something it's generally effortless, and if you're not able to perform there's very little you can do to fix that. This stems from an inherently horrible bit of design that, while not unique to them, is prevalent throughout them. Quite simply, they are a ranged class with absolutely no counterplay due to a high range, low cooldown, targeted, zero cost ability known as the autoattack being their primary source of damage.

Melee champions avoid this pitfall by being melee. Melee, in and of itself, encourages counterplay because at any given point in time wherein you're getting hit by a melee attack, you're capable of doing something no matter who you're playing. Sometimes, sure, that something may essentially be flailing around helplessly because you shouldn't have gotten into that situation to begin with, but you'll always be able to try and CC them, or kill them, or have your team kill them if they're nearby, or what have you. With a melee champion, there's never nothing you can do, and outplaying them involves manipulating the situation so that the only time they're close enough to hit you is when they're weak enough for you to take them.

Mages, on the other hand, are better. In general, they have the ever impressive ability to miss, which pretty instantly creates a situation wherein there's a high amount of counterplay. On one hand, the mage could heavily outplay you, landing every single one of its abilities and killing you without a care in the world. On the other, you could heavily outplay the mage, avoid basically every single one of their abilities, get close enough, and wreck them without a care in the world. Wherein melee champions are more a case of exploiting openings, mages play a game of prediction where there's a large difference between the best and worst case scenarios, with most situations falling somewhere in the middle. If at any point a mage is ahead, they feel strong, but you'll generally feel that there's still a lot you can do against them if you play well. Wherein if the mage is behind, they feel weak, but there's still a lot that they can do if they play well. Which makes them feel exceptionally rewarding to play with and against. You'll generally never feel hopeless, and the same will generally go for your opposition.

But then there's the ranged AD, which doesn't really have to care about any of that. When you're playing against a ranged AD, there's really no guarantee that you'll be able to do anything about it. Unlike with melee champions, they're sitting pretty in the back row without a care in the world, and they don't have to be close enough to you for you to do anything. And unlike with mages, they can't miss. There is no variance between the best and worst case scenarios. Which leads to an exceptionally binary circumstance. Either you're capable of taking the ranged AD out, either by simply outdoing their range with gapclosers and stomping them into the ground whilst they can't do anything, tanking their hits like they're nothing to the point where they can't do anything, or.... Well, playing a well designed mage and making the world a better place, but we can't all play mages. Or you're incapable of taking the ranged AD out. Because you lack the prowess to instantly close the gap and murder them, and you're not durable enough to make any difference. If you can kill them, it usually sucks to be the ranged AD, because there's basically nothing they can do about it. If you can't kill them, it usually sucks to be you, because there's nothing you can do about it.

And then there are mages. AP master race what what!

Basically, a reliance on ranged autoattacks is the worst mechanic in the game. Outside of Rengar's everything. The simplest and best way to make the game better would be to outright eradicate the focus on any champion utilizing autoattacks or any other 300+ ranged non-gap closing ability. Gap closers, by their nature, are different and would require their own discussion. First and foremost among the methods to do that would be to simply erase crit and every stat that goes along with it. Crit is, bar none, the worst designed stat in the game. Second would be to rework attack speed and CDR, combining the two. One of the major focuses of the game are towers, so you'll never really be able to get rid of attack speed, so instead you should just combine the two stats that function as a "Let me do more damage more often" sort of thing. The combined stat should work on the attack speed system, however, not the CDR one which is plainly inferior.

And then over time reduce the AD in any given sources and increase the AD ratios on champion abilities, until such a time where there are no champions who're primarily autoattackers, and AD simply exists a stat that allows your autoattacks to exist as a supplement. Yes, this would require the reworking of multiple champions. It would most definitely be worth the time spent.

13 Comments

67chrome8/26/2014, 12:24:22 AM1 votes

Said aspect being AD, but more specifically ranged AD's who're easily the largest problems in the game. So overpowered that trying to play a game without one on your side is basically a guaranteed loss. Yet despite that, they feel horrible to play, because if you manage something it's generally effortless, and if you're not able to perform there's very little you can do to fix that. This stems from an inherently horrible bit of design that, while not unique to them, is prevalent throughout them. Quite simply, they are a ranged class with absolutely no counterplay due to a high range, low cooldown, targeted, zero cost ability known as the autoattack being their primary source of damage.

Yeeeeah no.

Marksman are a pretty healthy force in the game for a verity of reasons. Main one being - they encourage team work on the part of their allies and enemies.

Marksman are the single easiest archetype to play around, offering the most counter play. If you focus them down, utilize crowd-control on them, or push them out of a fight - it directly pushes down their contribution to a fight, more heavily than against any other class. As sustained DPS - every second a marksman isn't attacking is a loss in their damage output, which simply zonning them can accomplish. The other 3 damage rolls aren't nearly as win-win to focus - Bruisers are powerful off-tanks with their defensive stats, making focusing them a bit of a catch 22. You can attack a tank while other damage rolls attack you, or you can ignore the bruiser while they deal fairly considerable damage. Mages and Assassins being burst-reliant can often unleash their full combo as long as they aren't permanently stunned or bursted from 100%-->0%, causing focus against them to have fairly negligeable returns - if you can't immediately remove them, there isn't much of a difference from killing them emediatly or directing damage against them 5~6 seconds down the road.

Which seems like something you're confusing as marksman are the best and need to be focused. Mages and tanks are usually more devastating within team-fights and a greater asset to team fights, the reasons they aren't focused first are purely strategic.

Marksman being one-click champions doesn't automatically mean they're easy to play. Packman and Donkey Kong are both very difficult games and all you do is move in 4 directions. Simple doesn't automatically mean easy. In the case of marksman - you have to constantly expose yourself to a 550~650 range zone of opponents to make meaningful contributions, and maintain a careful dance within that range.

Speaking of range - mages having 1,200 range isn't the same type of advantage as marksman having 500~600 range on their auto-attacks. Especially considering you have to search long and hard to find a gap-closer with less range than 600.

Quite simply, they are a ranged class with absolutely no counterplay due to a high range, low cooldown, targeted, zero cost ability known as the autoattack being their primary source of damage.

You might want to google what counterplay means, because I'm getting the sense you think it means "skillshots". There's plenty of levers you can add to deal with abilities outside of listing lazily to the left.

Monoblair8/26/2014, 2:21:58 AM1 votes

The idea is that adc's are supposed to scale well into late game which is what is currently the case. The idea is that adc's shouldn't feel useless when a mundo or another tank is just sitting there killing them since the adc is able to kite and lifesteal to counter the sustain and resistances that tanks have. If you want a counter to adc's pick any champ that can chunk an adc's health (mord, syndra, veigar, fizz) or has spell vamp/works well with spell vamp (mord, swain, ryze, akali, vlad). I had a game with a friend the other teams vayne was doing pretty well and vayne being a very powerful late game adc never got to late game since my friend was playing syndra (wasn't even fed) and could 100-0 vayne everytime.

MrSc0tty8/26/2014, 12:12:41 PM1 votes

So if say a melee assassin engages on a ranged champion, ccs them and bursts them down there's Counterplay and they just "shouldn't have gotten into that situation"

And when a ranged AD champion attacks a melee who doesn't have the means to engage them, then there's no Counterplay and it's unhealthy gameplay? What happened to "you shouldn't have been there in the first place"? Maybe Volibear should have saved his Q, and is now getting autoed by an Ashe, isn't that the same situation as that Ashe making a positioning error and having Talon burst her down while silenced?

Also, many ranged AD's can miss as large a fraction of their damage as mages can. If you dodge all Ezrael's skillshots he's SOL. There are only a few ranged AD champs who can never miss anything.

Vayne Tristiana

That's essentially it. Graves is a bit hard to miss with. Some like Jinx and Ashe just have ults. Everyone else has damage, cc or both on a dodgeable skillshot. More Counterplay than

Udyr Yi Garen Alistar Poppy Talon Xin Zhao Fiora Irelia Renekton Volibear

100% targeted all the time zero Counterplay when they're using their abilities. Don't call the kettle black, pot. "You can have a member of your team peel off a melee champion" you can also have a member of your team burst a ranged AD. Where's that Mage we mentioned earlier? Maybe a tank like Nautilus has a huge targeted cc ult he could follow up with a hook and a root while you're smashing that ADs face in.

The only reason. The ONLY reason ranged ADs are mandatory is that Riot wanted to avoid mages becoming abominable siege monsters and they limited turrets defenses to not take into account AP in any big way. And ranged ADs are great for sieges because they have long range.

Now I ain't saying that there aren't ranged ADs with major issues right now. Kog Maw Tristiana Lucian Jinx and Caitlyn all need nerfs IMO. But as a class they're fine.